In EPIC Suit, DOJ Identifies 75 Location Data Requests in the Virgin Islands from 2016-2019

As part of EPIC's ongoing lawsuit for cell phone surveillance orders issued by federal prosecutors, the Department of Justice identified 75 orders and warrants for cell phone location data under § 2703(d) from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Virgin Islands from 2016-2019. During the same period, the attorneys handled 283 criminal cases. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Virgin Islands is one of the smallest districts in the country. In February, EPIC obtained the number of location data requests for the District of Delaware, the first of five districts that the DOJ has agreed to search for location data requests. EPIC is still waiting for responses from 3 of the agency's other prosecutors' offices and will continue to update its comparative table as each district releases more information. Currently prosecutors do not release any comprehensive or uniform data about their surveillance of cell phone location data. In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Carpenter v. United States that the collection of cell phone location data without a warrant violated the Fourth Amendment. The case is EPIC v. DOJ, No. 18-1814 (D.D.C.).